Vera Elleson

Penn Valley is a better Meeting because Vera Elleson was our clerk and our friend. Although she has not attended our meetings for a while, the residue of her influence is still obvious. We see it in the way that we now conduct our Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business; in the development of a Quaker education committee; in the carefully-ordered clerk’s notebook passed now from clerk to clerk; and in Meeting’s dedication to provide training for whomever is Clerk of Meeting. We hear her influence when the question, “What does it mean to be a Quaker Meeting?” is asked in committee and business meetings. Vera would shake off any such credit and it’s true that many people participated in making these changes. Yet, she was our clerk when Penn Valley began to make significant adjustments in the 1990s toward becoming a more Quakerly meeting. She provided leadership and became the lightening rod for criticism.

Vera spent her childhood in and around the forested lands and countless lakes of northern Wisconsin. Her childhood activities blossomed into a life-long love of nature and a passionate commitment to environmental protection. She loved animals and found great enjoyment in birding all across the country.

Vera held an undergraduate degree in nutrition, a Master’s degree in counseling, and a Ph.D. in psychology. While studying for her doctorate at MU-Columbia, Vera met Mary Lou and they fell in love. For more than twenty years they made a home together, first in Columbia and then in Kansas City. Vera had two children, Jim and Linda, both of whom inherited their mother’s love of nature; a step-son, Caleb; two granddaughters, Lia and Elizabeth; and a greatgrandson, Kyle.

Vera brought passion and intellect to the issues which mattered to her. She wanted to understand and to improve human relations. For 14 years she was an elementary school counselor and for 20 years she provided therapy in her private practice as a licensed psychologist. She traveled to South Africa in the late 1990s as a member of the American Psychological Association assisting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She served on the board of Good Samaritan Project, GLAAD, and MOCSA. With a quiet voice, an informed mind, and a robust countenance, she spoke truth to power and stood with those who have been oppressed or abused.

Vera was a Quaker but more importantly she was a friend. She connected her friends to each other in a rich web of conversations, women’s music festivals, Quaker gatherings, dinners, book-clubs, bridge clubs, professional associations and personal celebrations. We miss her now and are grateful for her influence and for the friends to whom we are related through her.

-Donnie Morehouse